their excess power into the national grid will receive on average £900 a
Don't know if that rate is available yet. Originally, you could only sell back electricity at wholesale rates, which for unpredictable sources like solar and wind is about 2p/kWhr. Government did announce intention to change that to be the same rate you buy retail electricity at, but that raised lots of issues and I don't know if it's come in to effect yet.
"From April, people with a home wind turbine or solar panels who plug their excess power into the national grid will receive on average £900 a year," Mr Darling said. "I intend to make this tax free."
How did the very discredited domestic turbine crawl out of its grave?
They're not all missing
The page that I saw said it would help a specific number of people, they must have determined this number somehow....., or perhaps not
Indeed, and I'll buy you a pint or three if it's not set up a la Warmfront (as Adam W suggests) so that you can only get it if you use a company that's jumped through the various hoops to be an 'approved' contractor, who will no doubt charge at least £400 more than a reputable company without the admin overheads could do it for.
Do the maths.
load
So the 5kW installed capacity increases to 25kW... Hardley something to put in your back garden. Even 5kW windmill has a rotor 6m (20') in dia ontop of a 10m (30') pole.
I think I've seen rates of 7.5p/unit selling to the grid but probably only on wind turbine sellers sites rather than any DNO information.
Oh yes. 900 quid a year is 9000 KWH 9 MWh. a year is roughly 9000 hours, so that's an average of 1Kw.
My whole house runs on about that. Everything. 1Kw is a shade over a horsepower. Its the sort of power you get out of a model aircraft engine turning a finger shredding 10" prop at 10,000 RPM.
Its probably what you would get from a windmill about 50 feet high with blades to match, on a good day.
A 10% efficient solar panel would deliver an average of about 220W/sq meter, so lets say that 5 square meters of 10% efficient solar panels would be required to generate that as well.
In message , ARWadsworth writes
I thought this actually started some time ago, it's certainly been talked about in the plumbing and heating rag
If a new boiler saves a ton of co2 / year, how much was created in manufacturing it
Oh yes - made in forrin, so not our problem
is that from the 1st April, by any chance? :)
Smart arse.
That was a secret.
Adam
I'm not so sure. As I recall, the total solar irradiance averaged over the earth's disk gives a little over 1kW/m^2 (i.e. no adjustments for seasons, angles, day/night, etc). So maybe 100W/m^2.
#Paul
So how many bought votes is that then :-) Same with benefits before the election too I believe.
The maths are 4 thermocouples and a new cap, over close on 30 years. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to INVEST in one of the new offerings soon.
Andy C
WEll go an google 'average insolation for the UK'
and its a LOT less than that.
Cloud cover, long winter nights, angles etc etc.
And the difference in cost of gas consumed?
Cost of spares over 30 years, £135 + a few bottles of rust-proofer.
My prospective saving on gas at today's price £67.50/year.
Andy C
So from what you are saying if you have a less than 70% efficient boiler, and upgrading to a circa 90% efficient one would save you only £67.50 a year, you must be paying less than £337.50 a year on gas.
My bad: I assumed you'd be paying more. For most people paying more like that amount per quarter (or even month) the financial case is for upgrading.
Well, that was based on 15% so it nearer £90, but it's both the lifespan, lack of reliability and expensive spare parts that worries me, plus they are no longer maintained but just tested. I had an aquaintence that left BG for that very reason. The only thing that appears to be taken into account when pricing these things is fuel economy. There are plenty of other factors in the chain, but as I say, the choice is soon to be taken out of my hands. Any recommendaitions for the most reliable condensing boiler ?
Andy C
I'm paying less than £300 a year but I only have CH and hot water all year for that. And its a boiler on that list. If you are paying more i suggest you need to examine your lifestyle and house structure.
What are they trying to heat? Warwick castle?
Hard to tell since few of the current generation has been around for more than 5 years when the regs changed. I fit Worcester-Bosch iJuniors, iSystems and Ri models, which have a heat exchanger which I understand they took from a Dutch(?) company they acquired who, presumably, had been making them for some time. I'm afraid modern boilers are like modern cars: they are vastly more efficient than the old clunkers of yesteryear but at the price of relying on smarts in them which are potentially expensive to fix if they go wrong.
As for maintenance versus testing, the current trend is to test whether the boiler needs servicing. Combustion gas analysis gives one measure of this for most boilers in general, and for the W-B models I mention there's an internal test point at which you measure a pressure which tells you if you need to strip down and clean the heat exchanger (haven't needed to yet on any of the boilers I've serviced so far).
Again a bit like cars: they don't need de-coking and regrinding the valves after you've been down the shops a couple of times as the old ones did.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.